Typically, search results returned in response to a query are ranked (e.g., to determine the sequence in which the search results appear on the screen) based on commercial factors such as how relevant the results are to the query results and/or the quality of the search results and/or the party associated with the search results. However, such conventional techniques do not always produce a ranking of results that the search users desire. For example, a search result that is determined by a search engine to be relevant and therefore appears earlier in the results may not necessarily be a search result that is actually desired by users.
Sometimes, the ranking of search results based on conventional methods may cause the click-through rates for the search results to be relatively low. A click-through rate of a search result (e.g., link) is determined as the total number of clicks on that link divided by the total number of times that link has been displayed (the total number of impressions for the link). A low click-through rate may be explained by the fact that because the ranking of the search results may not reflect the ranking desired by the search user, the user may be discouraged from clicking on the search results.
One particular drawback to conventional techniques is that they fail to differentiate between search results such as which search results are in higher user demand and which are in lower user demand. The search results with higher user demand typically receive more clicks and those with lower user demand typically receive fewer clicks. Because conventional techniques cannot distinguish between search results of higher and lower user demand, many search results with lower demand can be transmitted from the server to the client without appreciably increasing the overall quality of search results and in fact, unnecessarily increasing network traffic.